Andrew Britton - The Operative

“She was across the street from the lab,” Hunt said behind his cupped hand. He had begun walking briskly toward the retreating Bishop. The crowd would keep him from getting too far. Kealey was watching Hunt. There was no getting around him, and Hunt motioned for the man to move in that direction.

“I checked domestic tracking and ID,” Trask said. “She requested two cab destinations today. The second was to your location.”

“That’s standard operating-”

“I don’t care,” Trask interrupted. “It’s time the renegade was eliminated.”

For Baltimore, for Franklin May, Hunt had assumed a philosophical attitude toward killing: the good of the many outweighed the needs of the few. That made what he was ordered to do palatable.

“I’ll take care of it, sir,” he said as he folded away the phone.

Hunt carried a Sig Sauer P220 Equinox. The Sigs were being phased out in favor of Glocks, with their smoother trigger action, but the AD was fond of his. 45 semiautomatic. He didn’t reach for the weapon in his deep shoulder holster, not yet. But he was folding and unfolding his fingers, his eyes zeroing in on Bishop as he walked, watching the area around him-and making sure, all the while, that he stayed wide of Kealey.

And then Hunt saw Bishop come to a hard stop at the foot of Spruce Street. Kealey was slightly behind him. He couldn’t risk drawing now; the CIA expat was certainly packing, as well. Hunt waited until he was at the edge of the crowd, which thickened as he neared City Hall Park, where the people he put behind him would shield him.

There was not enough room between the cab and the car ahead of it for Bishop to stand in front of the cab. Since he didn’t want it to go anywhere, he yanked open the passenger door.

“Hey, it’s occupado! ” the driver shouted.

“It’s okay,” the passenger told him. “I’m getting out.” She pushed a twenty into the plastic tray and slid from the cab.

The driver muttered his thanks for being stranded in a no-go zone as she slammed the door. Bishop was staring at her.

“You first,” he said.

“That’s not how it’s going down,” she replied.

Bishop was perplexed. He assumed she was here tracking Veil. He hadn’t wanted to say anything until he knew for sure that she knew. That was SOP packaged inside IA uber-caution. But what Jessica Muloni had just said to him was something else entirely. It wasn’t a prelude to information exchange. It was a command, as if Bishop were a suspect and she was the arresting agent.

Muloni pulled him away from traffic, toward the sidewalk. They stood beside the Pace University building. It was less crowded here, beside the bridge.

“Put your hands in your front pockets,” she said. Her voice and eyes were steel, and her right hand was behind her. He felt sick. She had a piece in her belt, under her shirt, and she was prepared to pull it on him.

“What?”

“Do it!”

He obliged.

“Tell me everything, now,” she ordered.

“What the hell’s going on?”

“Just goddamn answer me!” she snapped. “Your little girl was killed yesterday! What are you doing here, Reed?”

Bishop regarded her sadly. “Jessica, how did Veil get away?”

“You tell me!” she shot back.

“I have no idea, and for the record, I’m not here alone.”

“I know.”

It was then that Bishop realized how careful Muloni had been. She had situated them so that his left side was facing the bridge. He was looking uselessly out in the direction of the South Street Seaport. She, on the other hand, could see the surging crowds. She was also a step and a half away from him. Basic FBI training included disarming a gunman with a grab and twist of the hand while turning and stepping aside; he would need two steps to execute the maneuver, time enough for her to draw and fire.

“Where is she, Reed? Bishop was silent. It was obvious that Muloni had been following him. It took only a moment for him to consider the ways she could have known he was here. He wished he had asked Kealey who else knew the president requested him to go to New York. Was it possible that someone at a cabinet level, at a director’s level, was involved in this? Were there secretaries taking notes, or was it all being digitally recorded, as all official meetings in the Oval Office were? That wasn’t just for reference. It was for blackmail of chatty, duplicitous, or even drunk world leaders. It wasn’t that Bishop refused to believe there was duplicity at that level; he had seen all kinds of corruption and perversion of purpose in his years with IA. Considering all options came with the job. He simply didn’t want to believe it.

More likely, Muloni was the problem. Had she been at One West, working with Hunt? Was she the AD’s backup? Had she spotted them at Penn Station?

But this was a secret mission. How did she find out? he thought.

What did he miss? Where did he slip up? What would he have done had he not been here?

Funeral arrangements.

The Bureau would have created a death notice, which was standard for family members. That would have been circulated internally at the Bureau. But there would have been no funeral home attached.

That, plus Veil had escaped. Maybe someone put the two together, reasoned he had agreed to be involved with the trackdown, watched him, saw him get onto the train…

“I asked you a question,” Muloni said thickly.

“You’re way off base, Jessica,” Bishop replied.

“You’re here with a former Company man, a lone wolf. Way outside the Bureau comfort zone.”

“Cluzot had to-”

“Enough! Everyone around you was gunned down at the station this morning. Left, right, behind, in front. But not you.”

“I don’t know why that happened, either-”

“ Bullshit! I will put a bullet in your leg and step on it when you’re down,” she said. “You will tell me what you know.”

“While your crony Alexander Hunt keeps the cops away,” Bishop said. “He’s the bad egg, Jessica-”

“Really?” She looked past him. “You can tell him that to his face. He’s on the way over now.”

“Don’t trust him, Jessica. There’s something wrong with his operation-”

The young woman brought the firearm around, held it in both hands, pointing down in front of her. “Last chance.”

If Hunt were coming, Bishop was certain that Kealey would be right behind him. He needed to stall.

“If you let me get my cell, I’ll show you what I know about Veil,” he said.

“Left hand,” she said.

“I know the drill.”

Bishop slipped his left hand from his pocket. He used his thumb and index finger to reach across his waist slowly and remove the cell phone from his belt. He held his left arm in front of him, removed his right hand from his pocket, raised it palm up, then brought his index finger over and accessed his e-mails. He scrolled slowly to the one he had received on the train that morning. He turned the phone toward her.

“Read it,” she said.

As he expected, Muloni didn’t want to come forward or take her eyes from him until Hunt arrived.

Bishop turned the phone toward him and read: “Cargo from Quebec hijacked. Believed to be in NYC.”

Her lips drew back in a tense, straight line. She cocked the hammer of her. 38. “I got that, too. I’m going to count to three. One

… two…”

“She’s working for the Bureau,” Bishop lied.

Muloni regarded him suspiciously. “Killing civilians?”

“No,” he said, his mind racing to think of an answer she would buy. “Hunting the sniper who is doing that.”

Muloni didn’t release the hammer. “Who is this other sniper?”

Christ, she seemed sincere, Bishop thought. Was it possible she really didn’t know anything?